It's You and the Roses
by ButlerBassandSalvatore
Summary: Blair Waldorf has lost the will to exist. She floats through time and space. Without Chuck there was never any hope anyway. But where is Chuck? Is Blair loosing her mind? Is there a way to be happy again? Falling between the realms of insanity, hopelessness and pain, Blair struggles to find the answers to her changed life. She struggles to find him again.
1. Chapter 1

Chuck and Blair- Blair and Chuck.

The worst thing you ever did.

I don't have a story.

I mean, I did, about ten years ago?

Not now though.

Not anymore.

I am no longer the girl in the picture who will always smile back at you.

Love.

Love sucks.

Love is empty and meaningless.

Like the stars that shine at night, untouchable, foolish, deceiving lights in the endless black- they cannot light up the world with their feeble miniscule glow. They cannot be touched, they cannot be used as a torch for a blackened way. They only glitter, they only flicker, they only exist but outside the mind.

Friendship.

It could never have been real.

The laughter is fake and illusory- it misleads into believing that the world is full of golden, bubbling, overflowing lights when its not.

The world is empty and hollow and abandoned, at its worse. There is no light. There is only night and tears and missing people that will never know there was something to miss back.

I lay there sometimes in the dark.

I lay there, with my dark hair falling behind me, trailing all over the white carpeted floor.

I stare at the sky, the black sky.

I stare at the ceiling, at the careful white paint strokes.

I stare and stare and it doesn't matter if my breathing is shallow.

If my pulse is weak.

If my dark eyes are dilated.

It doesn't matter because still, I cannot see you.

There is a shard in my hand.

Is it glass? No its crystal.

I won't cut, because I promised.

I promised I would never hurt myself.

I never would have.

I won't.

I can't.

You beat me to it, anyway.

It hurts.

I am hurt.

I am broken.

I am dying.

I am dead.

Dead, here, without you.

The crystal slips from my fingers and my eyes are blank, just staring at the endless white ceiling.

Somewhere, from far away I can hear you calling.

Calling my name.

"Are you insane, Waldorf?"

_Yes._

"What is wrong with you?"

_Something's always been wrong with me._

"Why are you like this?"

_You would know._

"I'm not coming back."

_I know._

"I am never coming back."

_Rub it in, why don't you._

"Go home, Blair."

_I don't have a home._

"Get up."

But I am too stubborn, so stubborn and I stare at the ceiling, at the paint strokes, at the emptiness, the loneliness, the fact that I cannot breathe.

After a while, its time to go to work, so get up, shower and pick my way through the street because I have to make it on time. I have to make it.

I have to pretend for one more day until comes the day when I can no longer remember your voice, the day I will give up.

They say the inability to accept loss, is the first step towards insanity. Am I insane? Have I lost my mind?

I _don't_ know.

All I know is, if there is a way I can move on, I'd take it.


	2. Chapter 2

Weakness is a sin.

It shouldn't exist, not inside of her.

She is a beautiful girl with a beautiful disposition. Her eyes, so bright, like a sun shines in each iris, screaming of laughter, fury, glory. Her lips, moist and cherry, the inside of a bloodied strawberry, curled into a rainbow of a smile. Her face, glowing as she danced down the steps of the Met, yogurt and fruit cup in hand, Jimmy Choos clacking sharply.

She is beauty, she is strength, she is Blair.

But Blair is dead.

Blair falls now, the steps mock her and move beneath her, tripping her and her food falls, her yogurt falls, she falls, she bleeds, her hands hit the surface- hard.

When she raises her hands, her palms, the neat lines that trimmed it, are marred with crisscrosses. Her palms are disfigured with lines that weren't there before. She fell and she fell hard and she changed her fate, did she? She hurt herself. She changed herself. Did her lifeline break?

Or did just she?

Blair wakes from her dream and shudders. She raises her palms and inspects them.

Still milky white, softly pink. Nothing has changed, yet everything stings with unfamiliarity.

She tries to raise herself from her bed and then sighs and rolls over.

She hates waking up. She hates not sleeping. If she is asleep and not awake then she can pretend that Chuck is there, holding her. The bad dreams come but he shushes them away.

"It hurts," she mumbles in her nightmares, crying softly.

"_I know," he soothed her._

"Make it stop," she wept, her eyes dripping pain, "Make it stop, Chuck, make it stop-"

"_Shh," he whispered, gently wiping away the wetness of her cold cheeks. "I'm here, I love you, I love you-"_

"I can't live without you."

"_So don't," he challenged._

"Why did you leave me?" she demanded.

"_I'm right here, aren't I?"_

"But I'll wake up," she whimpered, "And you'll be gone."

"_Blair, don't cry," he coaxed._

"You're just a dream. You're just a dream."

When she woke up, she was still clinging onto the pillow that smelt like him, and her bedspread was soaked with tears.

She begged him in every dream to keep the nightmares away but what she forgot every time was-

He _was_ her nightmare.

Blair Waldorf hates weakness.

But every moment she tries getting out of bed all she can think of is how much she would like to fall asleep again.

Chuck is there in her dreams and her unconsciousness lets her forget that that is the only place she can search for him, find him and have him.

Ignorance is bliss.

So is lunacy.

"So this is what," Blair Waldorf thinks idly, "it feels like to be insane."

She lay back in the boat, staring at the stars, counting them with a thoughtful finger.

_One, two,_

_Buckle my shoe_.

She laughs at the memory of Chuck tripping Georgina over with his new loafers that first day in kindergarten.

_Three, Four,_

_Shut the door._

Chuck slammed the door of his apartment in her face.

Blair's smile flickered.

_Five, six,_

_Pick up the sticks._

She and Chuck shared a Chinese meal of noodles with a single pair of chopsticks. She dripped some over his cheek as she fed him. She gently wiped it away with a forefinger. Chuck smirked and she loved the way his half smile fell right into her hand.

_Seven, eight,_

_Lay them straight._

Chuck told her he didn't want anything to do with her so blankly and so brutally she could have sworn she felt her heart crack.

_Nine _

He went.

_Ten._

And never came back.

Blair rolled off the boat and into the water.

Drowning stunned her.

The water was too cold and the sensation of it rushing into her nose and mouth too crude. If she wanted to die, this was not the way, this had never been the way. She was a Waldorf remember?

_People don't tell you who you are. You tell them._

But what happened when she couldn't recall who she was anymore?

Blair gasped and reached for the surface, grasping the handle of her boat.

She shook like a leaf as she fought her way back in the vessel.

Weakness was a sin.

It shouldn't exist, not inside of her.

She is a beautiful girl with a beautiful disposition.

She is Blair, and she is not dead. She couldn't be, otherwise the water would not have hurt so much.

She is still wet and soaked to her skin when she knocks on that door, that door she swore she would never touch again.

_Gossip Girl can be right about you all she wants but she is not going to be right about me._

_I will not be weak anymore._

Blair raps sharply, hard, until her soaked knuckles bruise pink, bruise blue, bruise purple.

When the door finally does open she takes in the stunned face of the man before her. The face so handsome, it made one blink before they could think straight.

"Blair?" he asked her shocked, not a dream, but reality. His eyes roved her dripping dress and coat. "What are you- are you- okay?"

"Nate," Blair whispered, reaching out to grab the arm that was just as familiar today as it had been twenty years ago. "I need your help."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Snow and Wounds. **_

…..

It was an old memory. It was a strange memory. But it was there.

"Why are you with her?" Eva asked Chuck softly that winters eve.

It was snowing delicately on the front patch of the Bass Penthouse and Chuck Bass was out with tree ornaments in his hands that blazed fierce with sparkles.

Blair Waldorf watched from a distance, silently. Unbeknown to them she could watch and see everything.

She wasn't going to interrupt though.

Not yet.

She was curious to hear the answer herself, really.

Chuck watched the snow fall of the dull golden hair that made Eva look like a lost angel in the empty grounds. He thought of how he'd literally once taken this shy, sweet girl as his personal Angel, someone who saved him from the mirror that was his self.

"You know why," he said lightly, holding out the darkest ornament that was conflagration of golden glitter.

The round sphere lightly hatched on the tree branch. It swung once and then steadied.

Snow fell on Chuck's gloved hand. He watched the black leather collect the white flakes before Eva gently laid a bronze gloved hand on his.

Chuck stiffened.

"I don't," she said so honestly, that even Blair could see the literal desperate question in her hazy blue eyes.

Chuck retracted his hand. It was the best option considering how he figured Eva would like to keep that hand and not have a certain someone rip it off.

Blair fumed in the darkness.

Chuck let out a deep breath.

"When I'm with Blair," he said slowly, "I am most myself. Without any qualms, or fears or barricades I can be myself. I can love myself for who I am. When she calls out to me, I find myself adoring my own name. I forget I hate myself. I forget I hate everyone. When I am with Blair, I look in the mirror and I see a Prince, her knight in shinning amour. I'm not human, I'm ethereal. I'm not me, I am hers."

Blair didn't know why he was telling this curious, soft spoken old friend this except for the fact that he maybe owed Eva. He owed her the truth. He owed her to understand exactly how complete Blair made him.

"When I'm with her," Chuck said with a smile, a half smile and a revolutionary fire in his eyes. "It consumes me."

Eva's hand fell lightly to her side.

"I thought-" she said and then she hesitated.

"What did you think?" Chuck asked kindly, as though addressing the village idiot.

"I thought it was Henry," Eva said, a little bewilderedly. "Little Henry. I thought-"

"That I was standing here, in the cold, to dress a tree for my child as a surprise for his first holiday morning tomorrow? You guessed correctly. But I'm not with Blair because of an accident Eva. The superb accident happened because I wanted it to. But don't ever tell Blair this; she still thinks Henry was a surprise. I'll tell her myself a day she wont kill me for knowing the extents to which I went to have her."

The snow fell and Chuck pulled his hand away from the thick green leaves.

Somewhere in the darkness Blair Waldorf's heart soared.

The tree glittered blindingly with silver, gold, red and pale blue ornaments.

Chuck smiled proudly at his handiwork.

Eva watched his serene, brilliantly lit face for a second before taking a step back.

"I'm glad," she said so sincerely, Blair had to believe her. "I'm glad you're happy, Chuck."

"Thank you," he said courteously, "For your irrational concern."

"I always thought she was- no good for you," Eva confided.

Chuck looked up at her, his eyes sharp and fire colored in the darkness. "Well you- thought wrong, didn't you."

The twisted smile he gave her was dangerous. Blair noted that Eva decided wisely to go back to the room she had booked in the hotel which was Bass property- an annoying detail which neither Chuck nor Blair hadn't questioned yet.

But if she stayed any longer Blair would.

Blair made her decision. She stepped out of the shadows.

Before Eva could move much further though there came a sharp clacking noise that made the blonde turn around.

A rush of wind and Chuck was laughing, picking up a blur of brown and red and throwing it into the air- only to raucous squeals and catching it again. The child laughed delightedly in Chuck's arms and hit the strong shoulders with playful, tiny punches.

Eva watched the adorable scene, mesmerized- before she froze on the spot- as a lovely, angel shaped and dimpled face ascended from behind the brown haired boy's profile, to smile beatifically at her husband.

"Blair," Chuck whispered in a voice completely in love.

Blair Waldorf knew she looked stunning. Her hair was darkened to black in the dark night, with fiercely white snow glittering in the curls and her doe eyes huge and happy in her pale face. She wore navy blue attire and snug black tights and a snugger black leather jacket that showed off her tiny waist and melted off her rounded curves like hot fudge.

"You were late," she complained, in that charming innocent voice although her eyes roared with accusing flames.

Chuck laughed lightly. He kissed Henry over the head as the child played with the scarf around Chuck's neck. He kissed Blair meaningfully and the child giggled. Eva watched Blair melt into the embrace.

And so Blair saw Eva walked away. Eva was probably strangely relieved that her old friend was so happy and so content exactly the way she had always hoped for him. She walked away probably because she didn't want to interrupt, didn't want to cause Blair Waldorf any reason to doubt Chuck's integrity and honesty. She walked away but Blair knew that something in Eva's heart cracked slightly because she did love Chuck- had once loved Chuck so much.

It was, however, nothing compared to how much Blair Waldorf had loved Chuck Bass and did love Chuck Bass and would always love Chuck Bass.

Nothing.

Eva must have watched the family stand by that beautifully decorated tree and must have known that.

Chuck was Blair's whole life.

Chuck was Blair's whole smile.

He was hers, that was all.

Blair kissed the love of her life purposely and feverishly, making sure the world saw this.

…

…..

"_Look, I don't know why you've come to me. I don't know anything. No one knows where he is."_

"_I miss him."_

"_Blair, you need help-"_

"_No, what I _need _is him and you are going to _give_ the information I need or else, I will hurt you."_

"_That sounds like you."_

"_I just needed a plan. And it occurred to me that in all my tragic depths of despair, there _was _one thing I had forgotten_ _He always disappeared. Marrakesh. Prague. And he always came back. Tie perfectly knotted, hair brushed just right into place. And when he had no intention of coming back? He always left a clue to be found."_

"_Blair have you forgotten the whole Henry Prince fiasco? There was no clue."_

"_Paris was my clue. The summer vacations and my favorite summer destination was my clue."_

"_That was luck."_

"_Then I need it. A lot of it. And I need you."_

"_He didn't tell me anything."_

"_Nate, don't lie to me."_

"_I don't know anything."_

"_He took Henry, Nate."_

_Nate looked at her for a moment._

"_What?"_

"_He took Henry. So please. Stop lying to me."_

_For a long moment Nate just stared at her, his eyes deeply penetrating. _

_Finally he said, "But Blair. Who's Henry?"_


End file.
